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I eventually figured this all out.

The directory I posted above is correct, and for windows thats where the RTAS files should be stored.

What I didn't know is that different RTAS files expect different things from ProTools, ie. some of them only show up in the insert list of an "instrument" track, whereas i'm used to using auxillary tracks for that. In fact I'm still not really clear on what the Instrument track option is for... but nonetheless I use it for inserting a couple of the stubborn RTASs that wont show up in an aux track.

Hope that helps

what i've been told is that the instrument track is something created on the newer versions of pro-tools and is basically a midi track that is easier and more efficient to use.

my difficulty is that i've downloaded the rtas i've got it in the plug ins file (like you said) but the only options i have once i'm in a session under instruments (as a plug in ) are click and 2 morophoders.

i also think that pro-tools has some pre-installed midi patches available-- under c://progaram files/common files/digidesign/midi patches -- i can see them listed there but i'm not able to access them!

i've tried dragging the downloaded synth in to both of those files, i've tried dragging the contents of midi patches folder into the plug-ins folder. i've tried to use both midi and instrument tracks and i'm still getting nothing...

what am i doing wrong?

The MIDI patches you refer to are basically the patch lists for keyboard devices. So that if you had a Roland JV-1080 and you had your MIDI studio setup correctly, if you set the midi output of a midi track to your JV-1080, you could see and select a patch from the device from within PT.

However, I have NEVER been able to get these to work on my system. I also haven't spent much time trying to fix it as I have transitioned to mostly soft-synths and soft-samplers and don't use my external keyboard devices much anymore.

Instrument tracks were introduced with version 7 (I think). They are really a combination of an Aux Input and MIDI track in one. They record midi data and (typically) send that midi data to the VI instantiated on the Instrument track which takes the MIDI data, sends it to the VI, which creates audio data, the audio data generated is the output of the instrument track.

Waves provided the answer for me:

The L3-16 is actually only an RTAS / Audio Suite Plug-in. This plug-in consumes more memory than the TDM systems can offer.

So the new L3-16 limiting/mastering program is too large even for my HD3 Accel system.

Oh, well.